When Billy Joel wrote the lyrics to It’s a Matter of Trust, he probably wasn’t thinking about the Finnish education system. Yet the more I read the literature on high performing systems, I am convinced that trust is at the core of the cultural change needed to reshape schooling. It’s not new nor is it rocket science.
Michael Fullan says that you build trust through behaviour. John Hattie tells us that the ability for teachers to develop trust within the classroom is key to making students feel OK about making mistakes and asking questions. In Visible Learning, the highest “effect sizes within teacher student relationship came from empathy, warmth and encouragement of higher order thinking.” A report on a teacher education model for the 21st century by Singapore’s National Institute of Education emphasises the need for teachers to create cultures of care and trust.
As noble a calling as teaching is, the profession has been tarnished by a lack of trust, suspicion of teachers’ work and a top down approach to school improvement. Richard Elmore wrote in 2007 that a “non-professional teaching force is a compliant and easily managed workforce.” This view of teaching according to Elmore grew out of the late 19th and 20th century.
What differentiates high performing systems from others is trust. Trust permeates from the highest to the lowest levels: governments trust schools to deliver quality education, parents trust teachers to meet the learning needs of their children and teachers trust students to set and achieve their own learning goals.
I know Finland is the system du jour and some may be tiring of hearing about the Finnish way but I read a superb reflection in February’s Phi Delta Kappan magazine by its editor in chief, Joan Richardson. When I re-read the passages I highlighted in the article I am still astounded by the culture of trust that has been built not in one school but in every single school. How is this done? By driving responsibility down to the classroom and school level. This is similar to the principle of subsidiarity and it’s a term we don’t often hear in discussions about school improvement or teacher quality. Teachers have control over what they teach and how they teach and how they assess students.
The rationale behind Finland’s competitive teacher education program is quite simple: there are no mentoring or teacher evaluation programs and that’s the way they want it. Teachers are trusted to do their best not in their first year of teaching but throughout their careers. This is a quote from an education official from the Finnish National Board of Education:
We trust our teachers. They will find the best solutions, or they will create their own. They are doing very well without inspections and testing. If students are not happy, they go home and tell their mothers, and the mothers call the principal. That’s a fine inspection system.”
It exemplifies the level of trust between schools and parents and reinforces the critical role parents play in education. It is not just the responsibility of teachers or parents or governments – it is a collective responsibility in which the accountability lies with the professionals – teachers and leaders. Imagine knowing that if you sent your child to any school in Finland they would receive the same level of care and personalised learning regardless of academic ability, learning style or background.
For me, the gold standard is the fact that teachers are free to work from home when they are not teaching. As Richardson observes, the working conditions of Finnish teachers are closely associated with being professionals instead of the highly regulated working environment of American teachers. Can you imagine this happening in our schools!
Where does trust begin? With our students; believing that each one is capable of learning and will become life-long learners. It is on this belief that teaching begins.
If we are to build the same culture of trust then we need to face the facts and look at the evidence. This is a call to be courageous; to recognise that what was once off limits or sacred is now open to critical reflection and change. All this represents the fact that interdependence has to be the new norm. Isolation and mistrust are death to innovation and change.
To paraphrase an old song, “trust changes everything…..”